With You In A Heartbeat
by wisdomly
Summary: Short and sweet one-shot. The moment he knew, he was states away.


Superman was in talks with the Secretary of the Department of Defense when it happened, talking about the changes in airspace regulation and what that meant for his flightpaths through big cities. His mind was singularly focused on their discussion, and singularly focused on Lois at the same time, a few short states away in Metropolis.

She was doodling notes in a meeting, her foot tapping irregularly. Her heartbeat was unusually quick, quicker even than the nervous man's in front of him. Her blood pressure was slightly elevated, too.

But Lois wasn't nervous. So Superman made a mental note to remind her to book her annual checkup.

Just before he was about to pull his focus away from her, he heard it.

A fluttering. His attention lapsed and he might have twitched, because his colleague at the White House was eyeing him strangely and had his hand at his shoulder holster.

So Superman smiled, all dimples. "I apologise, Mr. Carter. Please, go on? You were outlining the flight paths recommended by the Air Force?"

"I- I was about to." Ashton Carter said, pulling up a manilla file folder that he now realised Superman could already see the contents of. And the contents of all the files in the building, confidential or not, come to think of it.

It kind of made meetings like this pointless, but it did help having Superman's friendly face stop by the White House every month. It was great for their press ratings. So they continued with the discussion, Superman acting interested, asking pointed questions he already knew the answer to, and a small smile was playing around his face from that moment on.

Superman made it back to Metropolis in minutes - it would have been quicker if he could break the sound barrier sooner than the middle of Maryland. But the city residents had complained, so he had started limiting himself to farmfields, then the farmers started to complain that the sonic booms scared the livestock and flattened the crops. So he had made concessions.

He arrived at The Daily Planet and changed into his civvies almost as quickly as the speed of light. Lois was still in the meeting, so Clark adjusted his glasses and waited patiently outside.

When she came out, a small smudge of donut glaze on the tip of her nose, she almost barrelled into Clark. "Oh - hey sweetie. What's up?"

She was chomping at the bit to get back to work, impatient, passionate, full of ideas now that she was free from the stifling boredom of the monthly meeting. Clark just gazed at her, unable to hold back a grin.

"Are you… do you have acid reflux?" Lois tilted her head.

"No. I just…" Clark realised that she didn't know. He didn't exactly know how to put it in a way that would make her as happy as he was. Should he be clinical? Or should he just blurt it? "I heard…"

"Oh, about the super scammy Tax Bill?" Lois' eyes brightened. She seemed to have put two and two together and gotten five. She grabbed him by the arm and led him towards the open offices in the middle of the building, and he was powerless to resist. "Ugh. Me too. You just got back from D.C, right? Tell me all about it, we can help you craft the right Tweet. It'll have to be full of integrity, but perfectly scathing, with just a touch of clickbait..."

Clark continued to smile. This news could wait. The News could come first, for now.

Lois stayed late typing up some editorials, and Clark went to the drugstore before heading to their apartment. Well, it was her apartment, but Lois always demanded he stay.

When she arrived home, a whirlwind of stress and talking, Clark soothed her with a gentle massage and a listening ear.

"Ugh, I'm sorry. I've been all me-me-me since I got home. I'm the worst." She said, going to the fridge. "How was your trip to D.C.? How was your day?"

"I got you a present." Clark blurted out, grabbing the bag from where he had hidden it. He presented it to her like it was a treasure, and she gingerly took it.

"Wow, you really went premium with the wrapping paper." She teased, untying the plastic bag. "You're always such a sweetheart, Clark, I can't-"

A pregnancy test fell into her hand, and she stopped abruptly.

"You should take it!" He said, excitedly.

Lois' eyes flicked from side to side, doing some internal calculations. "Clark, what are you- you know this isn't possible, right? I just got back three days ago, I was gone for two weeks. It's not-"

But his face was like a ridiculously happy little puppy. So she squeezed the test in her fist. "Fine. I'll take it."

She came back out two minutes later, and put the test in his hand. "There, see? Negative. Clark, sometimes you don't make any sense-"

Clark was frowning at it. "But I…"

And something in Lois' brain clicked, and her eyes went wide. "You- you can tell? Crap, of _course_ you can tell. Do we need to have a talk about X-raying me without my permission? Because frankly-"

"I can hear the heartbeat." Clark said, softly.

A sense of something filled Lois. Wonder, yet again, that this man - her man - was so amazing, and had so much power inside him, but so much restraint. He could have told her clinically, exactly how many cells were inside her. But he was always sweet, and always thoughtful.

"Wow." She said. Then the reality of it hit her like a freight train. "I'm… pregnant?"

Clark nodded, all gleaming eyes and teeth. "Yep."

"Holy shit." Her hand went to her forehead, her mind spinning a mile a minute. "Do you know how far along…?"

Clark shrugged. "I haven't x-rayed you. Do you want me to look?"

Lois tilted her head at him. He wouldn't do it without permission, she realised. Unless it was to solve a crime or catch a baddie. "Yeah, alright then."

She pulled him to the living room, where she laid herself gingerly along the couch, as if she was preparing for an ultrasound. "Is this okay?"

"I think so." He squinted at her abdomen. "Well, it's pretty small."

"Pretty small? How small? Grain of rice? Grain of quinoa? How small?" Lois tried to sit up, but Clark put a hand to still her. She wished _she_ could see.

"Stay still. About… two millimeters?"

"What is that in inches?"

"It's like… maybe a sixteenth. Maybe smaller. It's hard to tell." Clark unsquinted his eyes and let her sit up. "It's… not as cute as I pictured, either."

Lois took mock offense. "Excuse me, that's half of me in there. It's going to come out at least 50 percent decent looking."

They spent the evening looking up facts on the internet about babies, and embryos, and development, and coming to terms with the idea the best way they knew how. Research.

And when they went to bed, Clark held her so closely, and so tenderly. She wasn't so great at the business of talking, and she knew that Clark held himself back so she wouldn't feel uncomfortable. But his heart beating against hers, and the look in his eyes, said a million words that she would never tire of hearing.


End file.
